Thursday, July 22, 2021

Caricatures are fun...especially with sumo wrestlers!

Caricatures are always good time at fairs and carnivals.  I am always amazed by how quickly and relatively accurately artists are able to develop and draw these out for patrons.  I am not artistic so I always applaud and admire people who are.  Did you know some of the earliest caricatures were done by Leonardo da Vinci?  Makes sense since he was such a brilliant engineer and really used the right side of his brain to the betterment of a whole generation of artists, engineers, scientists, and craftsman.  Anyway, I digress....we are talking caricatures because of this set as it is almost truly unique in the world of sumo.  Normally, many sumo menko are drawn to approximate a rikishi's face, but this set does have the appearance of overexaggeration.  Before cameras and photographic reproduction were main stream on sumo menko, there must have been a small army of artists cranking out material.  I don't think this set was meant to be humorous or funny, but 84 years later it does bring a smile to my face.  Catalogued as the R3713: 1937 Caricature 4 set, these are fairly large at 1.5" x 3". 



Have an awesome week and sayonara!

4 comments:

  1. Fantastic artwork... and very cool that these survived WWII.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is pretty amazing. These are some of the more unique menko I have come across.

      Delete
  2. If I collected things in this field, I'd be all over items like these. I really dig them!

    ReplyDelete